The Iceman. Jeff Edwards
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river’s edge I could see signs posted at regular inter-vals. They showed a swimmer inside a crossed red circle and warned the unwary of the dangerous waters.
As I parked my car I smiled at the familiar surroundings and wondered what sort of a reception I was about to receive.
Chapter 3
Jim Sutton
T
he untidy old man in his well-worn and much creased suit stepped onto the board. He took up the white knight and walked between the uninterrupted rank of pawns before depositing his load on the selected square.
Opposite him, his equally ill-dressed opponent moved his black queen’s pawn one space forward, thereby opening up a gap in his row of pawns for his rook to break out onto the centre.
Many storeys above them, the chessboard in the park opposite seemed almost normal size and even from this height I could recognise the opponents. Both had at one time been Middle European refugees and I had played them both several times. They were a pair of old warhorses and although I had managed to beat them both, the margins of wins over losses were very much in their favour. These were a pair of men who had played chess all their lives and the game had become second nature to them while I had come to the game only in adulthood. Matty had taught me.
The thought of her brought a lump to my throat and I tried desperately to concentrate on the game below. I needed to clear my mind of everything else, but I knew that it was useless.
My Matty! My Matty had cancer!
The call from the doctor had come through only minutes before. He had confidently assured me that there was still hope of a full recovery. There was always hope, he insisted, and treatment would be started immediately. I accepted his reassurances but couldn’t bring myself to fully trust him. After all, I had placed my wife in his care for a simple broken leg. It wasn’t supposed to have come to this!
It was all my fault of course. Matty had been at me for weeks to bring that box down from the attic. The announcement that our daughter was pregnant with our first grandchild had sent her on a mission to recover the past. ‘I want Allison’s baby photos down from the attic so that I can compare them with the baby when it arrives.’
‘Why?’ I asked. ‘It’s not as though it can’t be Allison’s. She’s the one carrying the child.’
Matty had stood looking at me, legs apart, hands on hips, the very picture of tried patience. ‘Don’t try that foolish logic with me, Jim. Humour me and get the box down from the attic.’
‘Sure, love. I’ll do it as soon as I get back from my meeting.’
I hadn’t done it, of course, and had also forgotten to do it the second time she asked.
I was working in the garage when she appeared in the doorway and I could tell immediately what she was about to say, but she simply looked at me as I continued to plane away at the piece of timber resting in the vice and shook her head.
I placed the plane down. I knew instantly that I was in trouble and went to follow her, but she called out to me as she turned to leave. ‘Don’t bother, Jim. Continue with what you’re doing. It looks important.’
As every husband knows when you’re in this sort of situation, attempting to remedy the matter by insisting on doing the right thing is the very worst thing to try to do. Matty was determined to play the martyr and nothing I could do or say at this time would help the situation. At moments like this you let your woman do what she is determined to do and wait till later to make amends.
Sheepishly I returned to my task, wondering what I would have to do to atone for my shortcomings.
I had decided to take her out to a restaurant for dinner that evening and was feeling better about the situation when I heard Matty give a startled yell followed by the loud crash of a falling box and the dreadful sound of a body tumbling down the stairs.
Rushing into the hallway I found Matty spread-eagled on the floor with a large cardboard box split open beside her and its contents scattered everywhere.
My stomach dropped as I raced to Matty’s side. She groaned and attempted to sit up, emitting a piercing scream as she did so, before grabbing at her left leg.
‘Lie still!’ I ordered, kneeling by her side and trying to find where her leg was injured.
She yelled again at my touch. ‘Get your clumsy hands off me and call an ambulance.’
‘Are you all right?’ I asked stupidly.
‘No! I think it’s broken. Now go and call!’
Giddy with fear, I did as she directed and ten minutes later there was the sound of sirens outside. I rushed to the door to let them in.
The ambulance medics were efficiently friendly and we were soon on our way to the hospital with me in the back holding Matty’s hand and trying desperately to think of something to say that would make things right.
Matty simply gripped my hand harder and smiled at me through her pain. I knew she had forgiven me but couldn’t find that same measure of solace for myself.
After a flotilla of tests and X-rays Matty’s leg was plastered and she was installed in a private room with picturesque views over the hospital’s parking lot.
‘We’ll have you up and running around in no time at all, Mrs Sutton.’ Our doctor smiled reassuringly at Matty. ‘We can’t have one of our hospital’s best fundraisers cooped up in here when she can be out searching for more sponsors, now, can we?’
Matty had been on the hospital’s fundraising committee for years and one of her favourite pastimes was to use my position as the Chairman of Transglobal Developments Inc. to induce our clients to donate to one of Matty’s many charities. She had been doing this ever since our old company had merged with Transglobal which had put Matty out of a job. She had accepted the redundancy with glee, knowing she had more worthwhile things to do than to spend her life in front of a computer paying bills and trying to placate unhappy clients.
I had begun life as a simple carpenter, but when my parents had died young I invested their meagre inheritance in creating my own small house-building company. More by good luck than good management and very much to my surprise, the company was able to ride the wave of a boom in the building market to become relatively large and successful; however, I was still a person who preferred to be on hand at the building sites doing the manual work and totally useless when it came to the more mundane tasks of paying the bills and keeping the tax office happy. Desperately in need of help, I had advertised for a girl Friday and when Matty stepped foot into my cluttered yard for the first time, I had fallan completely and hopelessly in love.
She was a natural for the business and it was as much through her efforts in the office as much as my workmanship that allowed the business to blossom. I soon had an office staff of ten and several work gangs erecting new or refurbishing old houses all over the city.
Even after Allison was born, Matty continued to work in the office and our business continued to thrive.
Eventually, we reached a stage when we came into conflict with Transglobal Developments Inc. by vying for the same contracts as that much larger firm.
One day Matty came to my office with a worried look on her face. ‘I’ve been going over the last couple of contracts that we lost out on,’ she began. ‘Transglobal is deliberately undercutting us. They’re trying to run us out of business.’
‘How do we fight back?’ I asked, ‘They’re a lot bigger than us.’
‘We